


She Chose Me

by beyourmythical-bitch (dip_the_pip)



Category: Rhett & Link
Genre: Established Relationship, Young Love, teenage journal
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-20
Updated: 2020-05-20
Packaged: 2021-03-02 19:00:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,184
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24291703
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dip_the_pip/pseuds/beyourmythical-bitch
Summary: Link finds Rhett's journal from his teenage years and learns about the mysterious 'her' that Rhett was in love with.
Relationships: Rhett McLaughlin/Link Neal
Comments: 17
Kudos: 81
Collections: Good Mythical Self-Isolation





	She Chose Me

_I want to tell you everything about her, journal, I do, but I know I just can’t. She’s too special, too valuable. Sharing my love for her with the world would be…Well, it’d be devastating to us both. But not a day goes by where I don’t fall more and more in love with her._

_I hope she knows how important to me she is. I don’t tell her often enough, but I know it makes her really happy when I do. I hate the stares, though, the dirty looks from the other boys when I tell her that her hair looks nice today, or that her hands are soft when I would grab one to run across the playground with her to make it to the last two swings at recess._

_I’ve loved her for years, but I know she’ll never love me back. Not the same way. Whether it’s because she doesn’t, or she knows she can’t._

_I want to marry her. I want to spend my life with her. I can’t imagine a future without her, and yet there’s nothing I can do to ensure that she’ll never leave my side. I feel so hopeless thinking about ways I could spend my life with her, even if she never chooses me._

_-_

_Everyone loves her. I don’t blame them. She’s easy to fall in love with. She’s got a stunning smile, a musical laugh, an amazing personality, even if she can be a bit shy or awkward at first. And she’s got legs for days. I know I usually tell you, journal, sweet things I love about her, but dang, she does have nice legs. I may be the only one that notices them, though, everyone else is entranced by her charm. I still am, but now I let myself enjoy her physical form, too. I tried not to think of her like that, it felt invasive and I knew in general it’s wrong, but I’m only human._

_She doesn’t know of those thought, of course. She’d probably smack me upside the head and call me a creep, but her grin would never leave her face._

_I know she loves me. Not in the same way, but I’ll take what I can get._

_-_

_It’s hard watching her date other people. It’s hard watching her smile and laugh and be all ‘couple-y’ with other people, knowing I can’t give her the same thing, but she never makes her attention feel like a competition. She goes on dates with whoever she’s seeing, and we hang out afterwards. Or I’ll drop her off at her dates._

_She’s better at balancing dating life and friendship. I’m not, because I feel guilty. When I date a girl, she becomes my whole world. As soon as my date sees me interact with her, they can always tell that they’re in a race that they aren’t going to win. Because she won the race to my heart years ago, and second place is just the first-place loser._

_I throw myself into relationships, journal, because the heartbreak from those hurt less than the heartbreak of knowing that she isn’t an option._

_-_

Link’s hands are shaking as he quickly flips through a ratty old journal, reading various passages about this mysterious ‘her’. Who was this girl that Rhett was so obsessed with in his teens? The journal wasn’t all about ‘her’, there were camping and river stories with himself and Rhett, family trip stories, stories about other friends and events and adventures. The ones about this girl were rare, but consistent over the years. It seemed that Rhett’s love for her had never waivered, but why didn’t he ever say anything?

Rhett always told him about every crush, every girl he wanted to take out on dates and woo, but none of them lasted more than a few months. None of them were consistent for years.

Link closes Rhett’s teenage journal as Rhett walks into the bedroom, his heart still racing. It didn’t matter how Rhett felt about that girl, because Rhett chose him. And he chose Rhett.

“Hey, darlin, whatchu got there?” Rhett asks as he towel dries his hair and walks towards the closet to grab some clothes.

Link swallows thickly, weakly waving the journal, “Your mama sent a box of your old crap,”

“What’s that?” He asks, seeing the book in Link’s hand in the reflection of the mirror.

“Your journal from your teenage years,” He mumbles, trying to keep the bitterness out of his voice.

Rhett grins, “Oh, I’m sure there’s some good stories in there we could share on the show,”

“Like the mysterious girl you claimed to be in love with for your entire life?”

Rhett’s eyebrows shoot up, and a grin grows across his face, “Ah, you found out about her, huh?”

“Yeah, I did,” Link snaps, throwing the book needlessly hard at the bed, “What the hell are you grinnin’ about? I’m just finding out there’s apparently some woman out there that you’ve been in love with forever! How the hell do you think that makes me feel?”

Rhett rolls his eyes but turns towards Link and walks towards the bed. He sits on the edge, facing Link, and grabs the book. He begins to flip through, eyes scanning the pages, “Why’re you holding onto the fact that there’s, like, maybe a dozen passages over 6 years about her? And yet every other entry is some dumb adventure we went on together.”

“Because I was your best friend, she was someone you were consistently in love with for years,”

Rhett chuckles lowly, scratching at his beard as he reads through the messy writing of his teenage self, “You didn’t get to the last entry about her, did you?” He looks up from the book to see Link shaking his head and picking at his nails. Rhett flips through the book to one of the last pages and turns it to face Link.

In smudged blue pen is the date from about a month before their senior prom and the words

_She finally chose me._

“Wait…”

Rhett snorts, closing the book and tossing it aside on the bed. He reaches over and grabs Link’s hands in his own, noticing they’re shakier than normal, “I knew there was always the possibility that someone in my family would’ve gone through my journal when I was younger. I wanted to write pages and pages about every single minute detail as to why I loved you, but I knew if I shared too much, they’d pick up on it. If I had used ‘he’, and ‘him’, they probably would’ve assumed it was about you, but that wouldn’t have mattered because I would’ve been talking about being in love with a boy. I was so scared about one of them or, hell, even you finding it and knowing all my secrets. It was always you, Link, and it still is you.”

Link smiles sadly, looking down at their hands, “You knew even way back then that you liked me?”

Rhett shrugs a little, smiling softly, “I always knew,”

**Author's Note:**

> [Click here](https://beyourmythical-bitch.tumblr.com/post/618660347801452545/she-chose-me) to reblog the post on tumblr! :D


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